Sugar Momma Scam: Basic Safety Rules for New Sugar Babies
Romance scams cost Americans billions of dollars every year. Scammers prey on the vulnerable on social media and dating sites, but sugar dating platforms are their favorite. Compensated relationships imply an exchange of money, making sugar babies more susceptible to scams.
Safety is the first rule of sugar dating, so today, we’ll go over the basic safety recommendations and teach you to recognize scammers and fakes to keep you from making your financial struggles worse.
How to Tell If a Sugar Momma Is Real?
There’s no way to know a sugar momma is real until you meet in person and receive your first payment. No number of profile photos, videos, or generous tips is evidence you’re dealing with a real cougar, not a scammer with a long con in mind.
Instead, learn to recognize red flags and avoid risks. Steer clear if:
- Sugar momma insists on switching to WhatsApp or texting immediately after meeting you online.
- She doesn’t want to meet in person but will pay you for soulful conversations online.
- She offers to pay you in advance but needs all your credit card or bank account details to make the payment work.
- She wants you to make a small initial deposit to convince her you’re real and committed to a relationship.
If you run across any of these red flags, stop chatting with a sugar momma immediately and look for another match.
Common Types of Sugar Momma Scam
There are dozens of sugar momma scams, and con artists come up with new ones every day. Still, the two most widespread schemes are fake-check-style schemes and advance-fee scams and their variations across cash apps, PayPal, and other payment methods.
Sugar Momma Cash App Scam
Suppose a generous sugar momma offers to pay you $500 weekly but sends you two $500 cash app payments instead of one by mistake. After that, she’ll ask you to:
- Forward the payment to another user or organization
- Buy $500 worth of gift cards and send her their ID numbers
- Return the payment to her using another payment method, like Western Union
If you do, you’ll find your balance in the red in a couple of weeks when the cash app flags her payments as fraud or a sugar momma reverses them. As a result, you’ll be out of $500 and more if you manage to spend the second half of the payment.
PayPal Sugar Momma Scam
PayPal sugar momma scams work the same as cash app schemes. The trick is that all payments can be returned or canceled, even if you see the funds added to your balance. Scammers will always try to get you to spend or return some of the money before canceling the payments.
The most ambitious scammers will also try to threaten you if you don’t fulfill their wishes. You can get fake emails from PayPal support threatening to block your account on suspicions of fraud. Some scammers can also threaten to sue you or cause other troubles if you do not return their fake payments.
Mobile Deposit Sugar Momma Scam
Mobile deposit schemes are similar but use fake checks instead of canceled payments. Once you deposit checks, the bank will let you access new funds almost immediately while checking the payments for fraud. Sooner or later, the checks will get flagged as fake, the payment will be canceled, and anything you spend in the interim will come out of your credit balance.
Mobile deposit fake check scams can cause even more problems than the other types since the bank can suspend your account and block access to your funds once they notice fraudulent payments. In the worst-case scenario, the bank will close your account and add your name to the ChexSystems, ruining your credit history and making it harder for you to open an account with another bank.
There’s also another, even more dangerous, form of mobile deposit scams. A fake sugar momma may offer to pay off your bills and provide access to her account to do so. She may ask you to purchase gift cards or other items on her behalf, but you’ll have free reign of her account. Only it won’t be her account. Instead, scammers will give you stolen information and have you spend money on an innocent bystander. Essentially, you’ll be unknowingly stealing and committing wire fraud. If the owner of the account files charges, you can get a prison sentence.
How to Avoid Sugar Momma Scam
Although our platform relies on industry-standard anti-scam policies and best practices, scammers always come up with new ways to sneak in and prey on sugar babies. Recognizing them to stay safe isn’t as hard as you imagine. It comes down to a few simple online safety rules:
- Never share your sensitive personal information with sugar mommas you’ve never met. This includes your full name, address, SSN, credit card and bank account details, etc.
- Do not accept payments if you’ve never met offline and do not agree to receive payments as an employee.
- Never send money to sugar mommas, even if they promise to return your payment tenfold.
- Do not follow random sugar mama’s investment recommendations, especially regarding cryptocurrency.
- Do not upload or share identifiable nude pictures with unfamiliar sugar mommas who could use them for blackmail.
If any sugar mama makes you uncomfortable or showcases suspicious behavior, immediately block her to avoid further communication. Report her to the sugar dating platform administration to have her profile suspended or deleted. It’s an essential step to keep our sugar community safe for everyone.
Final Thoughts
There will always be scammers, but don’t let them stop you from enjoying a mutually beneficial relationship with a generous sugar momma. Once you know their favorite tricks and learn to cut them off, you’ll be safe and free to find real sugar mommas to solve your financial difficulties, not exacerbate them.
